Telepath These Days

6 - Fass that Found at the Last Moment

Breaths were held in the festival area. Some of the returned participants were experiencing the devastating sadness of returning empty-handed, some were experiencing the disappointment of not finding what they had hoped for, while others were experiencing the joy of finding what they had hoped for. The returns were completed, but without exception, all the last returns were filled with devastating sadness. So much so that some of them collapsed on the ground where they were crying, some of them were standing but pacing like zombies. After a few seconds, maybe half a minute, the appearance of a participant in the festival area, albeit delayed, with a light in the color of his fass, made the crowd forget all these emotional turmoil. There were surprised shouts from one section and applause from another.

#"Participant number 35!" said the voice echoing in the minds. "Fass of thought!"

Togan realized that he had been mentioned in the announcement, but he had not noticed what color his fass was. He had placed it in such a hurry that when he picked it up, he noticed its color in the silvery beams of light that appeared around him. He held on tightly to the last piece of twig handed to him for dear life, not even looking at what it was. When he finally realized which fass he had, he was sad that he didn't have Telepathy, but he knew that he should be happy that he had a fass.

Ozan came running up to Togan, shouting. "Cousin! Wow! Congratulations cousin, for a moment I was afraid you would return without a fass." He could say breathlessly... "Come on, hurry up, let's register in the forest system." he said, tugging on his arm.

Ozan threw his arm around Togan's shoulder on the way to the tent where they had registered for the camp. When Togan saw the blue fass on the arm hanging from his shoulder, the dreams he had been dreaming for days came to his mind. A feeling of jealousy swelled with an involuntary desire for the blue fass. Gently, he pushed his cousin's arm off his shoulder. He was fighting a battle in his inner world. It didn't take long for him to feel ashamed; he knew he should be happy with his cousin's success.

"Congratulations to you too, cousin." Said Togan, unable to stop his sadness. "You have become a telepath. I guess that means we've come to a fork in the road." He added, moving his wristband as if trying to show the difference of his own fass.

"No, no, why should we part?" he said, without losing his good humor as he walked. "We will study at the same school and in the same forest. Maybe we will be in different departments, but we will have common training."

Togan was not pleased with what he heard. In fact, his problem was not to study in different departments, but not to have telepathy fass. The moments when he accepted to return to the festival area without fass were quickly out of his mind. It was one of the general characteristics of man, he could not be satisfied with less, he always wanted more.

"Just because you're a thinker doesn't mean you can't use telepathic abilities." Said Ozan, continuing his speech. "Having the faculties of one species does not mean that you cannot use the special abilities of other species, even if they are not as powerful as your own faculties."

Being able to use different abilities still did not assuage Togan's desire for telepathy. It sounded to him as if what Ozan had said were just white lies told to comfort him. Ozan realized what was going through Togan's mind from his languid gaze.

"When all the participants who couldn't find fass were sent back as soon as the deadline expired, I looked for you among them. It was very painful; it was like checking if someone close to you had been hurt in an accident with a crowd of people." Said Ozan, finally biting his lips. He realized he was going in the wrong direction when he finished his sentence. "But I didn't see you there, I felt so bad at that moment that I wished I could see you even with neutral fass, even though neutral fass holders are forbidden to train in the forest..." he added, his eyes shifting sadly.

Togan asked, as if stunned. "How... What do you mean?" he stammered. "Didn't I come back when the time was up?"

He considered the possibility that the hourglass had really stopped for a while, as in his dream.

"Almost a minute." Said Ozan, opening his eyes wide as he made a number with his finger. "Why do you think that crowd applauded you? Your situation is unusual... it's a miracle that you have a fass right now..."

Ozan's words were interrupted by a smartly dressed woman tugging at his shirt as he entered the tent. She looked both hurried and angry. Both Togan and Ozan followed her in silence. When she left the T-shirt in front of the clerk, it was quite creased.

"The last person." The woman said, glancing at the T-shirt Togan was wearing. "Number 35, Togan Mert, the thought fass." She added, turning her face away with a cold and arrogant expression. "Give me your hand!" she said angrily. "Not that one, the one you carry the nest with."

The woman quickly grasped Togan's hand and pushed it through the hollow in the trunk of the young tree, which could be called a sapling. The nest on his wrist suddenly wrapped around his ring finger with sinuous movements and turned into a ring. Afterwards, the capillary branches of the tree crawled over his fingers and wrapped Togan's hand up to his wrist. When one of the branches touched the fass above the socket, he was startled as if it had become one with his body. Now he could feel the fass as clearly as his hand and foot. When the beams of white light from the hollow of the tree pushed his hand with intense flashes, the woman began to speak again.

"Now put your hand there."

Togan gently placed his hand in the hollow in the trunk of the second sapling she pointed to. Electric waves began to flow through his body. Finally, they gathered in his brain. Suddenly his eyes lost sight and his ears lost hearing. Strange shapes began to flow rapidly in front of his mind. It continued until the words, which were similar to the shapes that came out of the invitation cube when he received the forest invitation before, became meaningful. When he felt his five senses again, he saw Ozan smiling at him.

"It looks really interesting from the outside."

"All of your actions during the training will be monitored by the forest, which will determine how the forest will rate you." She said, glaring at him out of the corner of her eye. "In the second sapling, the forest language was loaded into your mind through memory management. You will be able to write and speak the forest language as long as you use your Fass."

The fact that Ozan did not worry and said that he would learn the forest language when the time came was now concluded. He could feel that he had a complete command of the language of the forest.

"We can go now." Said Ozan, cheerfully. "Actually, contrary to what I just said, to tell the truth, I knew that two of the last ones to return would return to the fass, and I believed with all my heart that one of them was you."

"How did you know that two people would return with the fass?" asked Togan in surprise.

"The rule of reflection of the sacred forest." He said, laughing. "There would be as neutral fass as there were six special ability fass. But..." he added hesitantly.

"But..." repeated Togan, ploughing on curiously.

"Only one participant, you, returned with a thinking fass. I've never heard of the rule of reflection being broken before, but it happened. No other participant returned with another fass."

Togan did not realize how interesting this was. Toprak, who had appeared a few steps away from them as they were walking away, did not give him a chance to think about it. With one hand on her mother and the other around her neck, she was showing Togan the fass on her necklace. It was silvery in color like Togan's fass. The traces of joy on her face at finding a fass told him that she wanted to be a thinker. Even though Togan had only seen him once and met her in a few sentences, he liked the idea of being together with Toprak in the trainings. Toprak could only smile at Togan as she left the festival grounds with her mother.

"What are you looking at?" Ozan asked in a suggestive tone.

"I'm just looking." Said Togan, ignorantly.

"Hmm..." he said, laughing. "By the way, your fass nest can switch between necklace, bracelet and ring depending on your mood. Don't be weird about it."

"Yeah." Said Togan, his eyes still following Toprak as he left the area.